Quick Fix – Triceps Pressdown

The Fix: Your shoulders should not be hunched forward and directly over your hands in the start position. If they are, you are putting extra bodyweight behind the movement and taking emphasis off the target muscle (the triceps). Keep your torso upright, with maybe just the slightest lean forward for balance and leverage.

The Flaw: Flaring the elbows out.

The Fix: This is triceps Training 101. For ultimate isolation, the elbows should be pinned to your sides throughout the set. Allowing your elbows to flare out necessitates the involvement of the pecs and delts, turning the move into more of a dips derivative than an isolated triceps exercise.

The Flaw: not locking out the elbows at the bottom.

The Fix: There are many exercises – typically pressing moves for the chest and shoulders – that call for stopping short of elbow lockout. Triceps exercises do not fall into this category. Stopping short of the lockout on pressdowns means stopping short of full contraction in the triceps. Do not do that. Fully extend the elbows at the bottom of each rep and squeeze the contraction hard for a count.